Month: August 2010

I watched the Restoring Honor Rally in Washington, D.C. yesterday. What I saw was nothing short of amazing. A true miracle of God. Why? In an terrible economy that we are in with unemployment nationally hovering around 10% (that’s 30 million people out of a job), People from around the country and even some from overseas flown, driven, or used whatever means of transportation they had available to get to D.C. and became apart of a this event. The focal point of this event was not so much America’s politics as it was returning America back to God.

In Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech you would notice that there very little people of “non-color” there. While in stark contrast, all colors and people groups were represented at the rally. In short, where the seeds of the dream had been planted in 1963, they have finally broken through the top soil in 2010. Is there still room to grow? Of course! Now it is up to the “tree” to reach toward the “Son”. The source of where the tree gets its nourishment and strength, and the arborist (the Church) to keep the tree growing straight.

In no other time in history where a nation has so desperately cried out to God, has God answered the cry like He has done on that day. The question is; Now that the cry has been given and God had responded, what do we do with it? Shall we in the Church view and treat this as an event, a religious/political “concert” of sorts or a Divine “Call to Action”?

I believe this was a call to action for the Church of America. After the rally, Americans hearts and minds were and are focused on returning back to God. It is our job to show them how. For if we don’t seize the moment and and explain to them that turning back to God includes prayer, but it is not limited to prayer. That the turning includes the stewarding of our time, talent, finances, and yes, our vote. If that message is not communicated clearly to our countrymen of the what God expects out of us, then hope will truly lost, the Church will be relegated as nothing more than a “sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal”, and this nation will usher in the very opposite of what our Founders pledged, fought, bled and died for. This nation will become a police state.

It is up to all of us who don the “black robe” in our hearts and mount a pulpit – be it physical or electronic, to speak the truth according to Scripture without fear or favor to man nor government. It is our mandate by God to show those in our pews that He is the one that we need to please. That everything on the Earth needs to be a reflection in Heaven – including our governments. It is when we as spiritual leaders begin to do this, we will have our sin forgiven and our land healed.

In this election cycle, we are now faced with issues and polices and yes, even political candidates that we have to choose to give them authority over us. The question we now have to ask ourselves is not so much a question of legality as it is a question of ethics. The choice of whether to affirm a vote on an issue or a candidate that is best for our nation because we can or because that affirmation that is best for our nation because we should. Consider this:

In California, “Medical” marijuana dispensaries are opening up all over the state (due to the passage of Proposition 215 several years ago). This gives the State additional revenue since they squandered the revenue we gave them through taxes (payroll, gas, etc).

In Tennessee, there are plans to build 5 to 6 “mega-mosques” This will generate a sizeable amount of revenue in the way of property tax for the State. However, the building of these mosques will be a continual eyesore in the community since the design will be completely out of step with natural landscape as well as the will of the people who have lived there for generations.

In Michigan and New Jersey the legal system in both states are slowly recognizing Sharia Law practices in the way of curbing free speech rights on Christian citizens (Michigan) and in allowing banks to underwrite interest-free home loans to Muslim applicants (New Jersey).

All three examples are exercises in the Democratic Process. At no time did anyone in or outside the Legislative Body of the respective states “crash the gates” and had laws forcibly enacted against the will of the members of the State Houses. However, all three are examples of what we could do but not what we should do. These examples come down to one thing: Ethics.

While it is true that you can’t “legislate” morality, you can choose what kind of morality you send to your respective State House or even the U.S. Capitol. For the type of character you will send to the governing body will reflect the type of policy they put forth and you will now be forced to adhere to it. In short, you will be liberated or cast into bondage based on the worldview that you voted for.

I heard it said many times, “It doesn’t matter what side you pick, they (political candidates) are all the same”. Their party affiliation, perhaps. But certainly not their worldviews. I have personally seen candidates that share a party affiliation, but their worldviews are radically different. Chuck De Vore is recent example of a candidate with a Biblical worldview that should of but did not win the party primary, therefore his name will not appear on the November ballot.

This is a typical example of the type of lackidazical attitude in the Church Body to not seek out candidates or issues that reflect or at least support a Biblical worldview. So when “the devil” gets into political office or when an state law/local ordinance is passed, why does the Church cry “foul” after the fact? As the saying goes medically, it is true politically: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.

Let’s not leave the patient (America) on the operating “table” to die while we are wringing our hands wondering what to do. Let’s “scrub up” (prayer AND action) get to work, save the “patient” and use Scripture to “rehabilitate” her back to her healthy self. The way the Founders intended her to live. The alternative is to let her die on the table, take her cold, dead body to the morgue of history, and let the future medical examiners of history perform the “autopsy” of what was America’s cause of death.

When they open up the ”Body” of America, will they find you as the root cause?

If you ever needed proof that we are indeed living in an upside down world, look no further than Elena Kagan. This is a woman has NEVER sat on the bench as a judge at ANY level. Yet Mr. Obama (once again I can not call him President, since he has not satisfied Article II of the Constitution yet – after nearly two years in office by the way) has nominated one of the most inept, unqualified attorney that has ever passed the bar to sit on the United States Supreme Court as a Justice. This will be a person come the first Monday in October, that will write opinions that will decide the amount of liberty you and I will have.

In all of my days on the Earth, I have never seen this type of blatant, open, corruption in the highest offices of our government. This act makes what Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton did in their administrations, look like Dorothy form the Wizard of Oz. True, the Beltway has never been “Kansas” but I didn’t think I would describe it as “Hell on Earth” either – until now.

Once again, my question is, “Where is the Church”? Where are the Pastors preaching conviction the we as the Church in America need to steward our rights and freedoms that God has given us to stand up and communicate to our Senators that Elena Kagan is not the person we need on the Bench. The Senate represents YOU. You represent GOD. By their overwhelming silence (which constitutes agreement, by the way), they have done the Church in America a great disservice by not addressing this issue from the pulpit. By their very act of not speaking out on this, they have said to the government, “We don’t mind living under tyranny, we have “Jesus” and He is enough”.

While it is true the Church has Jesus, He said in Matthew 6:24, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon”. Yes the context was talking about the concerns for the necessities of life, but please remember, He said that under a tyrannical government. A government where people like you and me have no say in how the government was run. A government where if you had grievances and you brought them forth without being summoned, summary execution would happen on the spot. That being said, how do reconcile your “theology” when the Founders of our country recognize that our rights and freedoms come from God?

Benjamin Franklin, a man that most liberal scholars considered one of the “least religious” said “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”. This is the same man who at the Constitutional Convention opened it up with this prayer, “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain” (see Psalms 127:1).

As I stated before, we the Church in America represent God. That being said, will the Lord finds us warning our countrymen of the impending danger and to show them through Scripture how to avoid it, or will He find us like the quintessential Norman Rockwell old night watchman, “asleep at the switch”?

It is time for the Church in America to make a choice and a stand. Which do you prefer – No-Doze or to be bulldozed?